Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread by Susanna De Vries

Author:Susanna De Vries [De Vries, Susanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
ISBN: 9781925281798
Publisher: Pirgos Press
Published: 2017-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

17 IN THE SHADOW OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

In the summer of 1925, the Lochs set off with Nancy Lauder Brunton, Alizon Fox and two other friends on a camping holiday to the head of the Athos peninsula, taking a small collapsible boat with them.

In those days reaching the coast of Prosforion, the area immediately north of Mount Athos, meant a two-day journey. The potholed road from Thessaloniki petered out at the town of Arnea. From there travellers and pilgrims bound for the monasteries of Athos rode along a rough mule track which wound its way through eighty-six kilometres of forest to the white-painted rock known as the Tripiti. Travellers would cover the rock with their coats and light a fire to attract the attention of the ferryman, who rowed across to pick them up, then ferried them to the refugee settlement known as Pirgos, the last village in Greece, five kilometres down a dirt track from the frontier of the independent Republic of Athos. From the Tripiti a mule-driver took the animals back to Arnea, having arranged to collect the party in ten days’ time.

When the Lochs and their friends arrived at the coast of Prosforion they were awed by the distant view of snow-covered Mount Athos, whose tree-clad slopes seemed to rise straight out of the sea. Dr House had told the Lochs that the peninsula was named after Athos, son of the sea god Poseidon. The original settlers of Athos worshipped pagan gods who they believed lived at the top of the sacred mountain. There were two main settlements in the area in classical times: the village of Acte, long since destroyed, which had been famous for its huge statues of Poseidon and Apollo, God of Music; and a large city buried beneath the ocean.

According to local tradition, in the year 49AD, the Panagia or Virgin Mary and St John the Divine were on their way to visit Lazarus—who, having been raised from the dead, had been appointed Bishop of Cyprus—when their ship was blown off-course. The ship’s captain mistook the tip of the Athos peninsula for the island of Cyprus and landed there. At the sight of the Panagia, the huge pagan idols fell from their pedestals and shattered. The people of Athos, realising their gods were powerless to save them, converted to Christianity and implored St John and the Mother of God to stay and protect them from pirates. But the Panagia explained that she and St John must continue their journey to Cyprus. Enchanted by the beauty of the wooded peninsula with its masses of wildflowers, she asked that it be named ‘the Garden of the Mother of God’ in her honour. No other woman should be allowed to land there.

The Lochs knew that monks and hermits had been living in caves and small huts on Athos since the fourth century. The first enormous fortress-cum-monastery, known as the Great Lavra, was built between 961-963 by St Athanasios with financial support from the Emperor Nicholas II of Byzantium.

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